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Jefferson Davis - A Klos Family Project

Jefferson Davis

1808 - 1889

President of the Confederate States of America

President of the Confederate States of America

DAVIS, Jefferson, statesman, born in that part of Christian County,
Kentucky, which now forms Todd County, 3 June, 1808. His father, Samuel Davis,
had served in the Georgia cavalry during the Revolution, and, when Jefferson was
an infant, removed with his family to a place near Woodville, Wilkinson County,
Miss. Young Davis entered Transylvania College, Kentucky, but left in 1824, on
his appointment by President
Monroe to the U. S. military academy. On his graduation, in 1828, he was
assigned to the 1st infantry, and served on the frontier, taking part in the
Black Hawk war of 1831 - '2. He was promoted to first lieutenant of dragoons on
4 March, 1833, but, after more service against the Indians, abruptly resigned on
30 June, 1835, and having married, after a romantic elopement, the daughter of Zachary
Taylor, then a colonel in the army, settled near Vicksburg, Miss., and
became a cotton planter. Here he pursued a life of study and retirement till
1843, when he entered politics in the midst of an exciting gubernatorial
canvass. He was chosen an elector on the Polk and Dallas ticket in 1844, made a
reputation as a popular speaker, and in 1845 was sent to congress, taking his
seat in December of that year. He at once took an active part in debate,
speaking on the tariff, the Oregon question, and military matters, especially
with reference to the preparations for war with Mexico.

On
6 February, 1846, in a speech on the Oregon question, he spoke of the "
love of union in our hearts," and, speaking of the battles of the
Revolution, said : " They form a monument to the common glory of our
common country."

In
June, 1846, he resigned his seat in the house to become colonel of the 1st
Mississippi volunteer rifles, which had unanimously elected him to that office.
Having joined his regiment at New Orleans, he led it to reinforce General Taylor
on the Rio Grande. At Monterey he charged on Fort Leneria without bayonets, led
his command through the Streets nearly to the Grand Plaza through a storm of
shot, and afterward served on the commission for arranging the surrender of the
place. At Buena Vista his regiment was charged by a Mexican brigade of lancers,
greatly its superior in numbers, in a last desperate effort to break the
American lines. Colonel Davis formed his men in the shape of a letter V, open
toward the enemy, and thus, by exposing his foes to a covering fire, utterly
routed them, though he was unsupported. He was severely wounded, but remained in
the saddle till the close of the fight, and was complimented for coolness and
gallantry in the commander-in-chief's dispatch of 6 March, 1847. His regiment
was ordered home on the expiration of its term of enlistment, and on 17 May,
1847, Colonel Davis was appointed by President
Polk a brigadier general, but declined the commission on the ground that a
militia appointment by the Federal executive was unconstitutional.

He
was appointed by the governor of Mississippi to fill a vacancy in the U. S.
Senate in August, 1847, and in January, 1848, the legislature unanimously
elected him senator, and reelected him in 1850 for a full term. He was made
chairman of the senate committee on military affairs, and here, as in the house,
was active in the discussions on the various phases of the slavery question and
the important work of the session, including the fugitive
slave law, and the other compromise measures of 1850. Mr. Davis proposed the
extension of the Missouri
compromise line to the Pacific, and continued a zealous advocate of state
rights. He was the unsuccessful state rights or "resistance" candidate
for governor of his state in 1851, though by his personal popularity he reduced
the Union majority from 7,500 to 999. He had resigned his seat in the senate to
take part in the canvass, and, after a year of retirement, actively supported Franklin
Pierce in the presidential contest of 1852. After the election of General
Pierce, Mr. Davis received the portfolio of war in his cabinet, and administered
it with great credit. Among other changes, he proposed the use of camels in the
service on the western plains, introduced an improved system of infantry
tactics, iron gun carriages, rifled muskets and pistols, and the use of the Mini
ball. Four regiments were added to the army, the defenses on the seacoast and
frontier were strengthened, and, as a result of experiments, heavy guns were
east hollow, and a larger grain of powder was adopted. While in the senate, Mr.
Davis had advocated the construction of a Pacific railway as military necessity,
and a means of preserving the Pacific coast to the Union, and he was now put in
charge of the organization and equipment of the surveying parties sent out to
examine the various routes proposed. He also had charge of the appropriation for
the extension of the capitol.

Mr.
Davis left the cabinet at the close of President Pierce's term in 1857, and in
the same year entered the senate again. He opposed the French spoliation bill,
advocated the southern route for the Pacific railroad, and opposed the doctrine
of " popular sovereignty," often encountering Stephen A.
Douglas in debate on this question. After the settlement of the Kansas contest
by the passage of the Kansas conference bill, in which he had taken a chief
part, ha wrote to the people of his state that it was " the triumph of
all for which we contended." Mr. Davis was the recognized democratic
leader in the 36th congress. He had made a tour of the eastern states in 1858,
making speeches at Boston, Portland, Maine, New York, and other places, and in
1859, in reply to an invitation to attend the Webster birthday festival in
Boston, wrote a letter denouncing " partisans who avow the purpose of
obliterating the landmarks of our fathers," and containing strong Union
sentiments.

He
had been frequently mentioned as a democratic candidate for the presidency, and
received many votes in the convention of 1860, though his friends announced that
he did not desire the nomination. Before congress met, in the autumn of 1860,
Mr. Davis was summoned to Washington by members of President
Buchanan's cabinet to suggest some modifications of the forthcoming message
to congress. The suggestions were made, and were adopted. In the ensuing session
Mr. Davis made, on 10 December 1860, a speech in which he carefully
distinguished between independence, which the states had achieved at great cost,
and the Union, which had cost " little time, little money, and no
blood," taking his old state rights position. He was appointed on the
senate committee of thirteen to examine and report on the condition of the
country, and, although at first excused at his own request, finally consented to
serve, accepting the appointment in a speech in which he avowed his willingness
to make any sacrifice to avert the impending struggle. The committee, after
remaining in session several days, reported, on 31 December their inability to
coma to any satisfactory conclusion.

On
10 January 1861, Mr. Davis made another speech on the state of the country,
asserting the right of secession, denying that of coercion, and urging the
withdrawal of the garrison from Fort Sumter. Mississippi
had seceded on 9 January and on 24 January having been officially informed
of the fact, Mr. Davis withdrew from the senate and went to his home, having
taken leave of his associates in a speech in which he defended the cause of the
south, and, in closing, begged pardon of all whom he had ever offended. Before
ha reached home he had been appointed by the convention commander-in-chief of
the army of Mississippi, with the rank of major general ; but on 18 February,
1861, he exchanged this office for that of President of the Confederate States,
to which the provisional congress at Montgomery had elected him on 9 February He
selected for his cabinet Robert Toombs, of Georgia, as secretary of state; Leroy
P. Walker, of Alabama, secretary of war; Charles G. Memminger, of South
Carolina, secretary of the treasury; Stephen
R. Mallory, of Florida, secretary of the navy; Judah P. Benjamin, of
Louisiana, attorney general; and John H. Reagan, of Texas, postmaster general.

The
last three continued in the cabinet as long as the Confederate Government
maintained its existence. Toombs, Walker, and Memminger were succeeded by
others. In his inaugural address Mr. Davis asserted that "necessity, not
choice," had lad to the secession of the southern states" that the
true policy of the south, an agricultural country, was peace; and that "the
constituent parts, but not the system," of the government had been
changed. The attack on Fort
Sumter, on 12 April, precipitated the war, and Mr. Davis, in his first
message to the provisional Confederate congress, on 29 April, after a review of
events (from the formation of the United States constitution till 1861), which,
in his judgment, had led to the contest, commended this act, while avowing a
desire to prevent the shedding of blood. The message also condemned, as illegal
and absurd, President
Lincoln's proclamation calling for troops, and that announcing a blockade of
southern ports, and ended with the famous words, "All we ask is, to be
let alone," followed by a promise to resist subjugation to the direst
extremity. Shortly after the change of the Confederate capital from Montgomery
to Richmond, which he had strongly advised, Mr. Davis removed thither, and was
met on his way with many marks of popular favor, every railway station swarming
with men, women, and children, who greeted him with waving handkerchiefs. Soon
after his arrival the fine
residence of James A. Seddon was bought and put at Davis's disposal by citizens
of Richmond.

His
first days in the new capital were spent in reviewing troops and in
speechmaking. He exhorted his hearers to remember the dignity of the contest,
and "to smite the smiter with manly arms, as our fathers did before
us," and declared his willingness to lay down his civil office and take
command of the army, should the extremity of the cause ever warrant such action.
Before his arrival in Virginia
an army of about 30,000 men had been raised, and as fast as new troops arrived
their officers were assigned to a rank in the Confederate service, regulated by
that which they had formerly held in the U. S. army. On 20 July, Mr. Davis sent
his second message to the provisional congress, then in session at Richmond. In
this message he complained of barbarities committed by National troops, and
again asserted the impossibility of subduing the south. On the morning
succeeding the delivery of this message he set out for Manassas, where a contest
was thought to be impending, and arrived there in time to witness the close of
the battle of Bull Run, reaching the field when victory had been assured to the
Confederates. The battle of Bull
Run was followed by a period of inaction, and Mr. Davis was blamed by many
for this policy, as well as for his "failure to organize the troops of
the several states into brigades and divisions formed of the soldiers of
each," as the law directed.

In
answer to these complaints, he has urged the length of time necessary to
organize "the terrible machine, a disciplined army," and
protested that, as far as in him lay, he favored an advance and endeavored to
comply with the legal plan of army organization. The question of the treatment
of Confederate prisoners by the National authorities soon demanded his
attention. On 17 April, 1861, two days after Mr. Lincoln's call for troops, Mr.
Davis had issued a proclamation inviting applications for letters of marquee and
reprisal.

The
"Savannah," a private vessel commissioned in accordance with
this offer, was captured off Charleston, and her officers and crew were tried
for piracy in New York and sentenced to death. Later the captain and crew of the
privateer "Jefferson Davis" were similarly convicted in
Philadelphia. Thereupon, in November, 1861, Mr. Davis ordered retaliatory
measures to be taken, and fourteen Union prisoners were selected by lot and held
as hostages for the safety of the condemned men the latter were ultimately put
on the footing of prisoners of war by order of the National government, and
subsequently a cartel was adopted for the exchange of prisoners, which remained
in force till its suspension in 1864, caused by disagreement as to the status of
Negro soldiers.

In
November, 1861, a presidential election was held in the Confederacy, and Mr.
Davis was chosen president for six years without opposition. In his message to
the provisional congress at its last session, 18 November, 1861, he briefly
sketched the situation at the close of the first year of the war, alluding to
the Confederate successes, the contest for the possession of Kentucky
and Missouri,
and to the "Trent" affair. He urged the construction of another
railway line through the Confederacy, asserted the improvement of the south in
military means and financial condition, and the inefficiency of the blockade,
and said:" If it were indeed a rebellion in which we were engaged, we
might find ample vindication for the course we have adopted in the scenes which
are now being enacted in the United States." The first congress under
the permanent constitution met in Richmond, on 18 February, 1862, and Mr. Davis
was inaugurated on 22 February The Confederacy had just met with its first
serious reverses in the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson ; but in his inaugural,
after a vindication of the right of secession, Mr. Davis indulged in many
favorable hopes. "The final result in our favor," said he, "is
not doubtful. Our foes must sink under the immense load of debt which they have
incurred In the heart of a people resolved to be free, these disasters tend but
to stimulate to increased resistance."

In
his short messages of 25 February and 15 August he suggested various measures
for the improvement of the Confederate forces. The result of the reverses in the
early months of the year, to which had now been added the capture of New
Orleans, began to show itself in a growing opposition to Mr. Davis's
administration, which up to this time had seemed all but universally popular,
and this opposition increased in force up to the latest days of the war. One of
the first acts of the congress was to puss a sweeping conscription law, to which
Mr. Davis reluctantly assented. This was stoutly resisted in some quarters, and
led to a spirited correspondence between Mr. Davis and Governor Joseph E. Brown,
of Georgia, who disputed the constitutionality of the measure. Congress also
authorized the suspension of the habeas corpus act for ten miles around
Richmond, and the formation of a military police, for the alleged reason that
the government was continually in danger from the presence in Richmond of
National spies, and the consequent plots and intrigues.

Mr.
Davis was present with General Lee at the battle of Fair Oaks on 31 May, and,
after the wounding of General Joseph
E. Johnston in that engagement, assigned Lee to the command of the Army of
Northern Virginia, having previously, on 13 March, charged him, "under
the direction of the president, with the conduct of military operations."
During a visit to the army in the western department, in December, 1862, Mr.
Davis, in an address to the Mississippi legislature, defended the conscription
law and declared that "in all respects, the Confederacy was better
prepared for war than it was a year previous." The proclamation of
emancipation by President Lincoln, to take effect 1 January 1863, called out
from Mr. Davis a retaliatory proclamation, dated 23 December 1862, in which,
after reciting, among other acts, the hanging of William B. Mumford for tearing
down the United States flag at New Orleans, after the City was captured by the
National forces, General
Benjamin F. Butler was declared a felon, and it was ordered that all
commissioned officers serving under him, as well as any found serving in company
with slaves, should be treated as "robbers and criminals deserving
death." These threats, however, were not generally executed, though
supported by the legislation of the congress.

In
his message of January, 1863, Mr. Davis announced his intention of turning over
National prisoners for prosecution in state courts, as abettors of servile
insurrection; but this proposition was rejected by congress, and provision made
for their trial by military tribunals. The two long messages sent by Mr. Davis
to congress in 1863 consist largely of discussions of the position of foreign
powers, especially Great Britain, with reference to the war. The one dated 7
Dee. announces the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and urges "the
compulsory reduction of the currency to the amount required by the business of
the country," together with other measures for improving the finances,
which had become hopelessly depreciated. They had never been on a sound
basis, and the currency had declined in value till it was nearly worthless.

In
April, 1863, in compliance with a request of the Confederate congress, Mr. Davis
had issued an address to the people of the south, in which he drew the happiest
conclusions as to the success of the Confederacy, from the way in which, in the
face of obstacles, it had already organized and disciplined armies. "At
no previous period of the war," said he, "have our forces been
so numerous, so well organized, and so thoroughly disciplined, armed, and
equipped as at present." The disasters of July at, Gettysburg
and Vicksburg coming in the face of this assertion, and the state of the
currency just mentioned, emboldened the opposition party in all parts of the
Confederacy fiercely to assail the administration. Mr. Davis was held
responsible for the advance into Pennsylvania, and accused of partiality in
appointing Peruberton to command in the west.

Charles
G. Memminger, secretary of the treasury, resigned, and his place was filled by
George A. Trenholm; but the new secretary was unable to stop the depreciation of
the currency. The lack of coin in the country, the inability of the people to
bear more taxation, and the spirit of speculation fostered by the enormous
issues of paper money, hastened the financial ruin of the Confederacy. Food,
too, was scarce. Kentucky and Tennessee,
whence had come most of the meat supplies, were lost to the Confederacy, and the
army was on half rations. At this time there was a clamor against the commissary
general, Colonel Northrop. A committee of the Confederate congress investigated
the matter and exonerated him ; but the opponents of the administration have
continued to hold him, and Mr. Davis through him, responsible for the scarcity
of food in the Confederacy, and therefore, indirectly, for much of the
sufferings of Union prisoners during the war. The exchange of prisoners had been
interrupted for some time by the refusal of the Confederate government to
recognize Negroes as National soldiers, and after many futile attempts to come
to an understanding with the National government, "We offered,"
says Mr. Davis (" Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," vol.
ii., p. 601), "to the United States government their sick and wounded,
without requiring any equivalents."

The
year 1864 opened with Confederate successes in Florida,
the southwest, and North
Carolina; and Mr. Davis, in his message of 2 May, said: " The armies
in northern Virginia and Tennessee still oppose, with unshaken front, a
formidable barrier to the progress of the invader." That progress,
however, was not long to be stayed. By an order issued on 17 July, 1864, Mr.
Davis removed General Joseph E. Johnston from the command of the army opposed to
General
Sherman in Georgia.
The cause and alleged injustice of this removal have not yet ceased to be
subjects for controversy, it being asserted by Mr. Davis's opponents that
personal reasons influenced him against an officer with whom he had never been
very friendly, while his supporters, denying this, fully justify the act. The
reasons given m Adjunct General Cooper's brief dispatch were, to tuft General
Johnston had "failed to arrest the advance of the enemy to the vicinity
of Atlanta, and expressed no confidence that he could defeat or repel him."
In answer to which General Johnston wrote: " I assert that Sherman's
army is much stronger, compared with that of Tennessee, than Grant's compared
with that of northern Virginia. Yet the enemy has been compelled to advance much
more slowly to the vicinity of Atlanta than to that of Richmond and Petersburg.
and penetrated much deeper into Virginia than into Georgia."

General
John B.
Hood, successor of General Johnston, was obliged to evacuate Atlanta on 1
September and Mr. Davis then visited Georgia and endeavored to raise the spirits
of the people there, and to restore harmony between the Confederate and state
governments. Governor Brown, who had opposed the conscription act, continued to
be hostile to the administration, notwithstanding an interview with Mr. Davis in
which the latter tried to convince him that his complaints were unjust. He
reviewed and addressed Hood's army on 18 September, and afterward, in speeches
made in Macon, Augusta, and elsewhere. strove to inspire the people with the
spirit of renewed resistance, and to persuade them that an honorable peace was
impossible. As is evident from the tone of these and other speeches, the peace
party in the south was daily gaining strength. Besides those who really desired
peace, there were others who hoped that a rejected attempt to treat with the
National government might, fire the south with indignation. As early as 30
December 1863, Governor Zebulon B. Vance, of North Carolina, had written to Mr.
Davis urging negotiation. The latter, in his answer, dated 8 January 1864, cited
previous unsuccessful attempts to communicate with the authorities at
Washington, and concluded that another would be undesirable.

In
January, 1865, however, after an interview with Francis P. Blair, Sr., who had
gone to Richmond, unofficially, in the hope of bringing about peace, Mr. Davis
agreed to send three commissioners to confer with the National government The
result was an unsatisfactory meeting on a steamer in Hampton Roads. On the
return of the commissioners public meetings were held, at which there seemed to
be a return of the enthusiasm of the early days of the war. Peace with the
independence of the south was now seen to be impossible, and the horrors of
subjugation by the north were painted in gloomy colors by the speakers. Mr.
Davis, always an able and impressive speaker, made what has been called the most
remarkable speech of his life. But this outburst of enthusiasm was only
temporary. The evacuation of Atlanta had been followed by Sherman's march to the
sea, and Hood's disastrous campaign in Tennessee. General Hood himself said, in
speaking of it when taking leave of his army in January, 1865 :' " I
alone am responsible for its conception." These reverses, however, with
Grant's
steady advance on Richmond, and, above all, the reelection of President Lincoln,
had produced a growing conviction in the south that defeat was inevitable. The
Confederate congress that met in November, 1864, was outspoken in opposition to
the administration, and in January, 1865, the Virginia delegation urged a change
in the cabinet, expressing their want of confidence in its members.

As
a consequence of this, James A. Seddon, then secretary of war, sent in his
resignation. In his last message to congress, dated 13 March, 1865, Mr. Davis,
while acknowledging the peril of the Confederacy, asserted that it had ample
means of meeting the emergency. On Sunday, 2 April, 1865, while seated in his
pew in St. Paul's Church, Richmond, he was handed a telegram from General
Lee, announcing the latter's speedy withdrawal from Petersburg,
and the consequent necessity for the evacuation of the capital. That evening,
accompanied by his personal staff, members of the cabinet, and others, he left
by train for Danville. On his arrival there he issued, on 5 April, a
proclamation of which he afterward admitted that, "viewed by the light
of subsequent events, it may fairly be said it was oversanguine." In it
he said : "Relieved from the necessity of guarding particular points,
our army will be free to move from point to point, to strike the enemy in detail
far from his base."

Danville
was abandoned in less than a week, and after a conference at Greensboro, N. C.,
with Generals Johnston and Beauregard,
in which his hopes of continuing the war met with little encouragement he went
to Charlotte, where he heard of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. His wife had
preceded him with a small escort, and it was just after he had overtaken her,
while encamped near Irwinsville, Georgia, that the whole party were captured, on
10 May, by a body of cavalry under Lieutenant Col. Pritchard. He was taken to
Fort Monroe, and kept in confinement for two years.

On
21 September, 1865, the U. S. Senate called on the president for information on
the subject of his trial, and in response reports were submitted from the
secretary of war and the attorney general, their substance being that Virginia
was the proper place for the trial, and that it was not vet possible peacefully
to hold a U. S. court in that state. On 12 October, in reply to a letter from President
Johnson, Chief Justice
Chase said that he was unwilling to hold court in a district still under
martial law. On 10 April, 1866, the judiciary committee of the House of
Representatives reported that there was no reason why the trial should not be
proceeded with, and that it was the duty of the government to investigate,
without delay, the facts connected with Lincoln's assassination. On 8 May, 1866,
Mr. Davis was indicted for treason by a grand jury in the U. S. court for the
district of Virginia, sitting at Norfolk under Judge Underwood, the charge of
complicity in the assassination of the president having been dropped. On 5 June,
at a session of the court held in Richmond, James T. Brady, one of Mr. Davis's
counsel, urged that the trial be held without delay; but the government declined
to proceed on the indictment, urging the importance of the trial and the
necessity of preparation for it. The court refused to admit the prisoner to
bail. On 13 May, 1867, he was brought before the court at Richmond on a writ of
habeas corpus, and admitted to bail in the amount of $100,000, the first name on
his bail bond being that of Horace
Greeley. Mr. Davis's release gave much satisfaction to the southern people.
The interest taken in him during his imprisonment, and their prudent idea that
he was to suffer as a representative of the south, rather than for sins of his
own, and was "a nation's prisoner," had made him more popular
there than he had been since the first clays of the war. After an enthusiastic
reception at Richmond he went to New York, then to Canada, and in the summer of
1868 visited England, a Liverpool firm having offered to take him as a partner,
without capital. This offer, after investigation, was declined, and, having
visited France, he returned to this country. He was never brought to trial, a nolle
prosequi being entered by the government in his case December, 1868,
and he was also included in the general amnesty of that month. After his
discharge he became president of a life insurance company at Memphis, Tenn.

In
1879 Mrs. Dorsey, of Beauvoir, Miss., bequeathed to him her estate, where he has
since quietly resided, giving much of his time to literary pursuits. In June,
1871, in a speech at a public reception in Atlanta, Georgia, he said that he
still adhered to the principle of state sovereignty, was confident of its final
triumph, and was "not of those who ' accept the situation.'' In
1876, when a bill was before the House of Representatives to remove all the
political disabilities that had been imposed on those who took part in the
insurrection, James
G. Blaine offered an amendment excepting Jefferson Davis, and supported it
by a speech in which he accused Mr. Davis of being " the author of the
gigantic murders and crimes at Andersonville." Senator Benjamin H.
Hill, of Georgia, spoke in reply, defending Mr. Davis from this charge. Again,
in 1879, Mr. Davis was specially accepted in a bill to pension veterans of the
Mexican war, the adoption of an amendment to that effect being largely the
result of a speech by Zachariah Chartdler.

In
October, 1884, at a meeting of Frank P. Blair post, of the Grand Army of the
Republic, in St. Louis, General William T. Sherman asserted that he had seen
letters and papers showing that Mr. Davis had abandoned his state rights
doctrines during the war, and had become practically a dictator in the south.
Mr. Davis, in a letter to a newspaper, denied the charge, and General Sherman
then filed with the war department at Washington papers that, in his view,
substantiated it. On 28 April, 1886, Mr. Davis spoke at the dedication of a
monument to confederate soldiers at Montgomery,
Ala., and was enthusiastically received.

The
engraving on the preceding page is a view of his early home in Mississippi. Two
biographies of Mr. Davis have been written, both by southern authors, which
illustrate the extremes of southern opinion. That by Frank H. Alfriend (New
York, 1868) represents those who are friendly to Mr. Davis, while that by Edward
A. Pollard, with the subtitle " Secret History of the Confederacy"
(Philadelphia, 1869), holds him responsible for all the disasters of the war.
Mr. Pollard, who was an editor of the "Richmond Examiner," a
paper hostile to the administration, concedes that Mr. Davis was thoroughly
devoted to the cause of the south, and had indomitable pluck, but accuses him of
vanity, gross favoritism, and incompetency.

In
addition to these works, see Dr. Craven's " Prison Life of Jefferson
Davis" (New York, 1866). Mr. Davis himself has published " The
Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government" (2 vols., New York, 1881).

His
brother, Joseph Emory Davis, lawyer, born near Augusta, Georgia, 10 December
1784; died in Vicksburg, Miss., 18 September, 1870, was the oldest of the ten
children of Sanmel Davis, and in 1796 removed with his father to Kentucky. He
was placed in a mercantile house at an early age, studied law in Russellville
and in Wilkinson County, whither he accompanied his father in 1811, was admitted
to the bar in 1812, and practiced in Pinckneyville, and afterward in Greenville,
rising to high rank in the profession, he was the delegate from Jefferson County
in the convention that organized the state government in 1817, and took a
prominent part in framing the constitution. In 1820 he removed to Natchez, and
formed a copartner ship with Thomas B. Reed, then the leader of the Mississippi
bar. In 1827 he decided to retire from the profession in which he had won
success by his learning, argumentative powers, and oratorical ability, in order
to become a planter. In this occupation he was also very successful, and at the
Beginning of the civil war he possessed one of the finest plantations on the Mississippi
river. During the war he was driven from his home with his family, and endured
many hardships. He returned to Vicksburg at its close, and, after a controversy
with the officers of the Freedmen's bureau, regained possession of his estate,
but continued to reside in the City of Vicksburg. Mr. Davis was noted for his
benevolence, and many youths of both sexes were indebted to him for a liberal
education.

One page letter"... I hope you will soon be with us
and you know the pleasure with which I shall greet you when Maryland
again shall make us confirms -
Jefferson Davis”

Dated Montgomery, Alabama, April 8, 1861
written to Maryland Congressman George W. Hughes a few days before the attack on
Fort Sumter.Hughes had delivered
and address to Congress on February 5th, 1861 just one day after the
Government of the Confederacy was established concerning the right of border
states to be able to choose its own destinies.The initial part of the letter was written by a secretary, but for some
unknown reason the final portion was finished by Davis himself.
:

Notwithstanding the reports of our arrangement by which I should be relieved of
the necessity of going to Richmond, the fact is that nothing has been done to
assure us of a trial or to remove the obligation of attendance.

When I leave here it will be my object to pass without delay to the end of the
journey, it will not therefore be probable that I shall see you again before
going.

Will you send me a statement of the investment with which you allowed me to
trouble you, such a description as will suffice for any use.

Present my affectionate remembrance to Mrs. Corse, to Miss Smith and the
children.

I am as ever very truly your friend

Jefferson Davis

The US Government had planned to bring Davis to trial, for treason or other
charges, while he was imprisoned after the war. For some of the charges, such as
conspiracy in the assassination of Lincoln, there was not enough evidence; for
charges of treason it seemed quite possible that Davis would be acquitted.

The United States
wanted him to ask for a pardon, but he refused this, feeling that to do so would
be an admission of guilt. Davis actually wanted to stand trial for treason,
because he felt certain that he would be vindicated. On May 5, 1867 he was freed
on bond at Richmond, and soon after he traveled o a home that had been prepared
for him near Montreal, Canada. In October it appeared that he would have to go
back to Richmond for a trial, but that likelihood evaporated and he never stood
trial at all

An interesting letter with its reference to the most important issue in
Davis’s life after his postwar imprisonment. Letters of Davis referring to his
possible treason trial are extremely rare

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Jefferson
F. Davis (1808-1889)
... was born on June 3, 1808 in Christian (now Todd) County ... Davis died on
December 6,
1889 and was buried in Metairie ... met as a duty." -Jefferson Davis
(1861). ...

Jefferson
Davis
... County, Kentucky , on June 3, 1808, he grew up in ... died on December 6,
1889, in New
Orleans. ... Ballard, MB, Long Shadow: Jefferson Davis and the Final Days ...

Jefferson Davis
Monument
... born on June 3, 1808, and was named after ... mansion called
"Springfield" in Jefferson
County. They got married ... Davis died in New ... on December 6, 1889, and it
is ...

Jefferson
Davis
... was born on June 3, 1808 in Christian County, Kentucky ... of the
Confederate Government.
Jefferson Davis passed away on December 6, 1889 in New Orleans. ...

Jefferson Davis--NSH
Statue
... Jefferson Davis, born June 3, 1808, in Christian (now Todd ... of the
Confederated States
. Jefferson Davis died in New Orleans on December 6, 1889. ...

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